GOP fights to hold onto Louisiana seat

Democrats are trying to send one last powerful signal to House Republicans in the 2008 cycle by picking up one more GOP-held slot — a conservative seat in the Deep South that has been in Republican hands for the past two decades.

The race, to be decided Dec. 6, is to succeed retiring Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), who has faced hardly any credible opposition since being first elected in 1988. The seat in northwestern Louisiana is a conservative stronghold that gave John McCain a resounding double-digit victory over Barack Obama on Election Day.

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But the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is bullish since recruiting Caddo Parish District Attorney Paul Carmouche, a socially conservative candidate with strong law-and-order credentials. Carmouche has served as district attorney in the district’s largest parish, which includes the city of Shreveport, for 30 years.

Carmouche is facing Republican John Fleming, a physician and businessman with little experience in the political arena. His highest elective office was coroner of small, rural Webster Parish in the mid-1990s.

“I think the race is going to be close, given the demographics of my district. Democrats have recruited an acceptable politician who has been in office for 30 years and who certainly can lay claim to be a much more conservative Democrat than Barack Obama is,” said McCrery. “The district isn’t as strongly Republican once you get below the presidential level.”

The DCCC has spent about $250,000 so far in its attempt to win the seat and has sent scores of field organizers into Louisiana. The committee is also on air, accusing Fleming of supporting Social Security privatization and backing a FairTax proposal that Democrats argue would raise taxes on the middle class.

But the harshest attack in the race has come from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is accusing Carmouche of being soft on crime because a convicted felon, John Pilinski Jr., was released from prison during Carmouche’s tenure as district attorney.

The accusation has enraged the Carmouche campaign, which argues the ad is intentionally misleading: Carmouche said that he secured a 10-year sentence against Pilinski but that the Caddo Parish clerk’s office accidentally recorded the conviction as being for only a year. Pilinski was released from prison after one year; two weeks later, he was picked up by police after he allegedly attempted to steal an SUV.

“I don’t control the clerk of courts. This was a clerical error,” said Carmouche. “Everyone was surprised when we heard he got out.”

The allegation threatens to undermine Carmouche’s carefully hewn image as a tough crime fighter. His campaign has already pushed back on the charges by getting crime victims to speak out on his behalf in videotaped testimony. He put out a campaign ad in response to the attacks that reintroduces himself to voters as a “tough” district attorney.